On Thu, Sep 1, 2011 at 5:15 PM, drew <drew@baseanswers.com> wrote:
> On Thu, 2011-09-01 at 16:40 -0400, Rob Weir wrote:
>
>> We have such a method, if it were needed. It is called ooo-private.
>> If we think that 30 private forums are needed in order to discuss "bad
>> behavior" in support posts (3 forums per each of 10 languages)
>
> Come on Rob, people like to work in there own language what is so hard
> to understand about that?
>
>
I do understand that. Asking work to be done in English is an
imposition on non-native speakers I've tried learning other
languages over the years and I know how hard it is. I am amazed at
the strong language skills our project volunteers have. Even where
they think their English skills are poor and are afraid to write in
English, I find that it is very easy to understand them. They are
better at English than they think they are.
This is not just an issue with the support forums. We have many PPMC
members whose native language is not English. Would it then be a good
idea to have multiple ooo-private lists, so we could conduct
confidential PPMC business in multiple language? So ooo-private-de,
ooo-private-es, ooo-private-zh, etc.?
I think that would be a bad thing. Why? Private lists are
discouraged in general, but where they are absolutely necessary they
come with checks and balances, with oversight and accountability. We
conduct our main business, our votes, and our private project
discussions in English, to maximize the ability for everyone to
participate in the work of running the project. We might have user
lists and support lists in other languages, for the benefit of our
users. But it is necessary that project administration occur in a
language we can understand. Monitoring private lists and ensuring
that they are not abused is a PPMC oversight function and should
(IMHO) be done in English as well.
And as I mentioned before, if we're doing so much work on private
forums that this is a burden, then we're probably overusing private
forums.
-Rob